Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity(Architext)

This book brings together a series of new and historical case studies to show how different phases of globalization are transforming the built environment. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, the author draws on sociological, geographical, cultural and postcolonial studies to provide a critical account of the development of three key concepts: global culture, post colonialism, and modernity. Subsequent case studies examine how global economic, political and cultural forces shape the forms of architectural and urban modernity in globalized suburbs and spaces in major cities worldwide. The first book to combine global and postcolonial theoretical approaches to the built environment and to illustrate these with examples, Spaces of Global Cultures argues for a more historical and interdisciplinary understanding of globalization: one that places material space and the built environment at the centre and calls for new theories to address new conditions.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Part I: Theories 1. Worlds in the City: Wonders of Modern Design to Weapons of Mass Destruction 2. Interrogating Global Culture(s) 3. Cultures and Spaces of Postcolonial Knowledges 4. The Times and Spaces of Modernities 5. Writing Transnational Planning Histories: The Dialectics of Dual Development Part II: Histories 6. Suburb/Ethnoburb/Globurb: The Making of Contemporary Modernities 7. Villafication: The Transformation of Chinese Cities 8. Imagining the World at Home: The Distant Spaces of the Indian City 9. Transnational Delhi Revisited: The Spatial Language of Three Modernities 10. Imperialism, Colonialism and Architects of the Arts and Crafts in Britain Part III: Pasts/Presents/Futures 11. Ways of Seeing: Serendipity, Visuality, Experience

About the Author :
Anthony D. King is Bartle Professor of Art History and of Sociology, State University of New York at Binghamton. He has been Visiting Professor in Architecture, University of Califonia Berkeley and, for five years, Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Review :
'This outstanding volume by Anthony King is empirically rich and sends deep theoretical tremors as well; an invaluable read.' - Jan Nederveen Pieterse, author of Globalization or Empire, Routledge 2004 'The book is very interdisciplinary--and inherently geographical ... It is sensitive to political and cultural context and highlights the various hegemonies at play in architecture.' - Environment and Planning A 'King's importance in shaping the way we understand globalization as an unequal and uneven system not only of economic but of material and cultural processes cannot be understated.' 'The empirical material in this book is excellent.' 'This is architectural history at its best.' - Rob Shields, Building Research and Information, 2005 'King provides an accessible and significant contribution to the literature on how transnational and global identities play out within the built environment ... it will be of considerable interest to a range of courses, from architecture and planning history to the sociology and geography of consumption.' - Journal of Consumer Culture '...an excellent book that maps the multifaceted ways in which the built environment is influenced by transnational processes in general and a good overview of the research of one of its most important students in particular' - International Journal of Urban and Regional Research